April 2020 a month to forget, looking forward to resuming business: FADA

Automobile dealers body FADA on Friday said it was looking towards opening of the lockdown and resuming business again at the earliest without compromising citizen safety after witnessing zero sales in April.

Stating that April 2020 will be a month which the entire automobile industry would like to forget, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) also said that to resume business, the entire automobile ecosystem has to come back to business together as the entire system is inter-dependent.

"This is the first-time ever in the automobile history that there has been no sales/zero sales, it is a difficult moment for all of us in the automobile community. We look forward towards opening of the lockdown and resuming the business again at the earliest, without compromising citizen safety," FADA President Ashish Harsharaj Kale said in a statement.

He further said, "April 2020, will be a month which the entire automobile industry would like to forget and implore that such a time never comes again in future. The entire country is under lockdown, the complete automobile ecosystem has been affected, right from the dealer to manufacturer to component manufacturer everyone."

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Kale also reiterated that to resume business the entire automobile ecosystem has to come back to business "as any of the members of the ecosystem if left out in lockdown condition will have a significant impact on the entire ecosystem, as the entire system is inter-dependent".

Going forward, he said, "We need to see how much of demand will be affected but it is expected to be significantly lower and the industry will require enormous government support immediately after the lockdown, to get the demand back on track."

He said support from the government in the form of reduction of GST rate on automobiles and interest rate reduction through banks and NBFCs to reduce cost of ownership and spur demand.

Besides, Kale said immediate introduction of long-pending attractive incentive-based scrappage policy can work as a demand revival tool at this different time.

"Government should include auto industry in priority sector, so that both retail and wholesale financing can be made available easily, helping the banks allot a certain portion of their funds for this sector," he added.